A plain Quaker folk singer with a Juris Doctorate in his back pocket, salt in his blood, and a set of currach oars in the closet, Ulleann Pipes under his arm, guitar on his back, Anglo Irish baggage, wandering through New York City ... in constant amaze.
Statement of Faithfulness.
As a member of the Quaker Bloggers Ad Hoc Committee I affirm that I will be faithful to the Book of Discipline of my Meeting 15th Street Monthly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

This Sick Nation

When do we wake up? One out of everyone hundred and thirty six Americans are presently in jail, 2.2 million of us. Add to this civil incarceration, the numbers are staggering. Yesterday an eight year old was playing with the brakes of a parked bus, and it rolled down hill and killed a little girl. He has been arrested and is being charged with criminally negligent murder. How the hell can an eight year old be criminally negligent. Frankly, if asked, I would say that a nation that uses jails for every thing imaginable while committing mass murder overseas... a nation whose educational system is so poor that we become a breeding ground for fundamentalist beliefs that fly in the face of modern science, because our people don't know the difference between science and myth... this is a criminally neglect society.

Eight year olds play, it's what they do, how they make sense of the world, how they learn. I played with plenty of dangerous stuff as a child and was very lucky. The mortality statistics on farm children are appalling, because they play in the same ways I did - on the back of the farm machinery and in the barn.

We've lost one child in this horrible tragedy. Do we really need to lose two? And where were the adults who might have been looking after this kid and making sure that there was something better than playing with brakes?

I too heard that NPR program. It's horrifying how we've so suddenly turned into a fascist looking place, not unlike Germany in the 30's.Lorcan: Thank you for your ongoing Quaker witness which describes these things so accurately and so painfully. I hold you in the light.